St. Paul daily globe., 1887-03-26
ADDITIONAL MINNEAPOLIS NEWS
MYSTERY OF THE RECORDS.
what Court House Officials Say of
Their Disappearance.-W hO Mon
keys with Themf


Their Disappearance.-W Who M on
keys with Theml
For some time past the court reporters of
the various morning newspapers have been
complaining that important papers, such as
assignments and complaints in big cases,
have been withheld from them in the Office
of the clerk of courts. Yesterday morning
the Tribune contained an article III refer
ence to the matter, in which the clerk was
cenSured somewhat severely The facts in
the whole matter are these: When the
Pray Manufacturing company assigned all
the reporters having the court house run
were instructed to watch carefully for the
statements OF the assets and liabilities.
One of them, at least. asked every day if it
had been filed, and always received a mega
tive reply. 1t was finally found that the
schedule had been filed some days, and the
boys have been wondering ever since why
mo was always given as an answer.
Another complaint has been that certain
papers have not been put in place where
they could be got at. This seems to have
been without foundation to some extent.
Tuesday morning the papers in the Reed
DALEY Il Betterman trouble were filed. but
when the reporters of the GLOBE. Tribune
and Pioneer Press looked for them they
could not be found. All the clerks in the
Office disclaimed any knowledge of where
they had gone. 4 day or 50 later the
papers were called for. and one of the
clerks produced them from the vault. The
notice of assignment in the Meader 81 Co.
trouble was filed Wednesday morning, as it
was afterwards found, and the papers
should have been kept in the customary
place. The last seen of them that day they
were in the hands of a reporter for an
afternoon paper. The next morning the
envelope containing the papers was found
back in the vault in its regular place. The
clerks declare that they know nothing in
regard to the matter, further than
that the papers were filed when brought in
and were where they belonged the next
morning. The question now is, who had
the papers during the time they were not
i'll their proper place? Clerk Davenport
says that no one has a right to remove the
papers from the office, but 1t would seem
that this has been done in numerous cases,
or else some one in the Office knows more
about the matter than he is willing to tell.
Papers that are filed after 5 o'clock in the
evening, after the reporters have gone
home. are not put in the pigeon-hole at all.
and thousand papers could be filed that
way and no one be the wiser. Speaking of
the matter yesterday Clerk Davenport said:
can assure you that there has been no at
tempt, to my knowledge, to suppress any
files or information, and the attack on this
Office in the Tribune was entirely unwar-
ranted. The method of procedure in refer
ence to cases coming into the Office is this:
The complaint or first paper fled in a case
goes at once to Capt. Tirrell: he enters the
case on the register of actio 8, puts it in an
envelope and indorses it, and then places it in
q ha on fOr.t
commodation of the newspaper men. This is
invariably the case, excepting when an at
tachment is issued to an outside county.
Then the case does not go into the reporters
box until the next day. The reason for adopt
ing this rule was this: A wholesale house in
this city took out an attachment to some out
side county and started is attorney at once
TO place it in the hands of the sheriff of that
county. The newspapers published the fact
OF the issuing of the writ and some friend
here who saw the paper sent a telegram to
the defendant, and when the attorney and
sheriff arrived on the ground, defend
ants property had disappeared. The claim
amounted to over $500, and was lost. You
reporters don't get attachments of this char
acter, nor do you get all the judgments that
are docketed for the reason that as soon as q
Judgment is drawn it is handed to Mr.. Dckey
TO docket, and if Mr.. ID. does not docket it
before YOU leave ut night of course you miss
it. don't propose to allow any one to handle
the judgments until they are docketed for if
there should be miss anywhere in getting
them properly docketed l might possibly be-
come personally liable. We are obliged to
close at 5 o'clock in order to close up the days
business as | never allow the business of one
day to lie over until the next day We are
here some nights until O'Clock. Now. in re-
gard 10 the Beede & Bray and Meader assign
ments. The Beede q Bray assignment was
handed to Mr.Altnow after he had left the Of
ice at night and he at once returned, un-
locked the office and filed and entered the case.
The Meader assignment was duly filed and
placed in the reporters box and IL it was not
there when you examined the papers do not
know where it was. We have not for the
last two years and half kept back from the
public single case. l have invariably told
parties who make such request that we
would not do it, that they must go to the
newspapers If they wanted to keep any mat
tiers quiet. In the matters in question we
were never asked to keep them out of sight,
nor could we have any object in doing so.
don't propose to take any notice of the Trib-
unes TRADE and should not have talked to
you about it if you had not asked me.
REAL ESTATE PAPERS.
Frequently deeds are brought into the
register of deeds Office with the request
that they be kept from the newspaper re-
porters In such cases the words don't
PUBLISH are written across the top of the
deed, aud after copying the deed the clerk
slows it away with the mortgages and other
unpublished deeds. There it remains, as
far from the reach of the reporters as
though it We're at the bottom of the sea-
These unpublished deeds are mainly specu-
lative proceedings, and are not disclosed
for the reason that the next purchaser
might not be willing to pay double price
for the land, as he now does in many
cases. The register of deeds and his deputy
are not responsible for this state of things,
for a reporter or any one else can see these
deeds if he wants to simply by going to the
receiving register and looking up this deed.
This involves considerable labor, however.
and a morning newspaper reporter cannot
spare the time to look the matter up. Both
Mr.. Peterson. the register, and Mr.. Plum
mer, the deputy, have never withheld any
paper from the reporters.
BRANCH pOsToFFECEs.